Better late than never?

Happy New Year!!

2020

 Well, a whole year has passed and I seem to have failed to upload a recipe. That is pretty bad...However, I don't like the word failed and although I have not done very well (a massive understatement, I know!!) with keeping my blog updated...2019 was a very busy year!

I finished third year at university, I went on a lovely holiday to Spain in May, I returned to work at the castle - which was another seriously busy season, I came back to uni for my fourth and final year (WHERE has the time gone?) and then came Christmas, New Year and all those celebrations! In short, it has been a very lovely but very busy year!

Onto 2020, I wanted to set resolutions but I realised that pointing out what I need to be better at or do more of just places a lot more pressure on a year that is already going to be extremely hard work (at least for the first half). With that, I decided to continue doing what I thought I had done well in or enjoyed in 2019. Of course, baking was up there - but I want to enjoy writing up and sharing my recipes again.

This recipe is for Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes. This was a new one for me as I had never baked something especially for a vegan. I have tried baking without dairy before but if I got stuck, my family weren't fussed if I chucked a bit of milk in the recipe to loosen it up or used butter for my brownies instead of oil. Recently, a few of my friends decided to start a vegan diet. I know the troubles they had at first, substituting dairy for non dairy and so on. I decided to make them an easy, 100% vegan treat.

☆ -  Prep Time: 25 minutes
    Cooking Time: 20 minutes
    Easiness: Easy

Ingredients: 
Cakes:

• 210ml Soya milk
• 150g soft light brown sugar
• 1 tbsp instant coffee
• 75ml olive oil 
• 150g self-raising flour
• 30g cocoa powder

Icing: 

• 500g icing sugar
• 190g olive spread
• 45g cocoa powder

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan 160°C) and place your cupcake cases into a muffin tin. 
2. Put the coffee in a mug with 2tbsp of boiling water, stir and leave to cool slightly before pouring into a larger bowl.
3. In this bowl, add the soya milk, sugar and olive oil. 
4. In another bowl, sift in the flour and cocoa powder. 
5. Then add the soya milk mix to the flour mix and mix until combined fully. 
6. Spoon the mix into the cup cake cases and place in the oven for 20 minutes. To check the are ready, place a skewer in the cake, if it comes out clean, they are ready! Leave the cakes too cool.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Place half the icing sugar in a bowl with the olive spread and cocoa powder. Mix this until fully combined. Add what's left of the icing sugar and mix until you have a glossy chocolate butter icing. 
8. Place the icing in a piping bag and pipe onto your cakes in whatever style you want. I did not have any piping nozzles at the time so just cut a small slit in the piping bag and piped in a circular motion. 
9. Enjoy with a warm cup of tea ♥

These vegan cakes are so simple and so tasty! I think they went down a treat and I would make them again due to their simplicity. I hope you enjoyed this post and if you try the cakes, let me know how you got on ♥